NICU- Day 3

Today has been an incredible day!  Audrey is making huge strides.  Today she has tolerated ALL feedings (increasing by 1mL every 3 hours) from a BOTTLE- no feeding tube since late last night!  I am so proud of how hard she is working.  She's also still on the nasal cannula with NO talk of CPAP at all.  She got to wear clothes today and I got to dress her, change her diaper, check her temperature, and best of all, do "kangaroo care" with her, where she got to snuggle on my chest.  I held her like that for about an hour and then Paul took a turn with her as well.  It was pure HEAVEN to hold her like that...I can't wait to bring her home and get to do it whenever we want!  It was also really nice to see all her monitors reading perfectly while she was in our arms- her O2 saturations were great, respirations slowed down, heart rate remained steady and at the correct speed.  I am so, so proud of her. 

We are now looking at a release date of late this week- tonight she is "tanning" under the bili lights due to a slight case of jaundice.  They are also only increasing her feedings by 1mL every 3 hours so tonight she will be just about halfway to the goal feeding amount of 50mLs (a little more than 1.5oz).  It will take about 3 days to get her up to this amount so we're looking more at Thursday or Friday to bring her home. 

It is hard having her away from us but at the same time I am so grateful for the incredible level of care she's getting.  She is doing so well and I am so thankful for this and also thankful that places like the NICU exist- she is a whole different baby now that she is getting bigger and healthier.  My birthday is this coming Saturday and I am so hopeful that she will be home celebrating it with us....that would be the best present I could get! 

I have some pictures from today but I'm not uploading them tonight- the camera is out in the trunk of the car and it's time for me to go pump and go to bed.  I'll post more tomorrow- she was BEAUTIFUL today so be sure you check back so you can admire how pretty she is! :)